


Six Stages of Falling in Love

by notcrypticbutcoy



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blue Eyes, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Smut, M/M, Malec, gift for simon-love-lace (tumblr)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 11:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5625157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrypticbutcoy/pseuds/notcrypticbutcoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six Stages of Falling in Love. Malec AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Stages of Falling in Love

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Six Stages of Falling in Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7686754) by [ElasticLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticLove/pseuds/ElasticLove)



> Secret Santa gift for @simon-love-lace on Tumblr!

1.

_You see him for the first time, and he'll walk right past you like you are a crack in the wall and he is a skyscraper with his head so high in the air, and when you can't sleep you'll think about the way his eyes strayed into yours for a moment too long before breaking away and disappearing into the crowd of people._

Magnus wasn't supposed to turn around, halfway through his third vodka martini of the night. He wasn't supposed to feel eyes on his back that made goosebumps rise along his arms, despite the sweat rolling down his back in rivulets while he was wedged amidst writhing bodies on a dance floor. He wasn't supposed to still all over, like one of those terrible scenes in the movies, and feel everything around him melt away as he locked eyes with the young man across the room.

But he does.

It's a mere second. Less than. But it's a second that seems to stretch out into minutes, hours, days, as their eyes lock, and every tense, knotted muscle in Magnus' body loosens, slackens, his breaths halting and his heartbeat slowing.

A breeze floats through the room in the moment the young man spends staring at him, in between one step and the next. Dark, dark hair is blown across porcelain-pale skin, and the collar of a leather jacket flaps sideways, revealing the first curls of an inky black tattoo.

Later, Magnus remembers it all. That snapshot in time, forever burned into his mind. But for this moment, all he sees are blue eyes, sharp, sweeping across the room as he walks, pausing on Magnus. All he sees are two pupils dilating, and long lashes sweeping down and up, heavy-lidded when they rise.

And then those eyes break away, and time restarts. The young man continues walking, head high but shoulders hunched, a beautiful contradiction that Magnus can't help but stare after as his fingers slip from the glass he holds, and it crashes to the floor, sticky liquid splashing across the linoleum.

Magnus blinks. He hadn't realised how much a person could miss when they blinked until then: one moment, the young man had been walking through the crowd; the next, he had disappeared amongst the people, and, no matter how much Magnus searches, he can't find him again.

And when he lies in bed that night, he can't get the image of blue eyes locking on his out of his mind. And when his eyes slip shut and he falls asleep, it is to the drowsy fantasy of a pale hand resting in his hair, fingers stroking and tangling absently. And when his dreams come, they are of dark locks falling across a smiling face, eyes sparkling, his entire being glowing like some kind of heavenly angel.

2.

_He'll look both ways before telling you he loves you under his breath, and when he hugs you his eyes can the empty room as if the wall had eyes and ears and mouths that could give you away._

Magnus finds him again in a café, days later, ordering black coffee with a bashful smile on his tired face. His thanks is quiet, but his shoulders are square, and Magnus wonders whether all of him is an enigma.

(It is. And Magnus soon realises that he could spend every day trying to decode him, but he'll never cease to be surprised and confused and blissfully, wonderfully bewildered.)

Magnus catches his name, written in scrawling writing on the side of his cup. _Alec_. Magnus sounds it out in his head, imaging his mouth shifting to accommodate those two syllables.

And then those eyes are fixed in his again, and recognition flashes through them, fast as he'd disappeared that night, and Magnus is desperate in a way he's never felt desperate before—he can't let this man leave. He can't let this be the last time he sees him. He's never felt attraction like this, as intense and painful as a supernova, and he can't bare to let it slip through his fingers.

When the man - _Alec_ \- drops his phone right in front of Magnus in an awful parody of the way Magnus had dropped his drink (he was too busy staring to make his fingers work) and opens his mouth, an apology streaming from between his lips, Magnus can't focus on the words. He's transfixed by the sound - deep, nervous, his words tripping over each other - and the way his lips move to shape each word.

And, inadvertently, Magnus smiles, and Alec falls silent, and they stare for another moment, as though they're not in the middle of a café, people rushing about around them, perfect strangers.

Magnus barely remembers how he got Alec's number in his phone (their conversation kept breaking off as they stared) or how he made Alec flush a delightful red, all the way up his cheeks, that caused Magnus' stomach to churn, or how one phone call turned into two, and then three, and then a date.

But he does remember the date. He remembers catching Alec's hand in his, and lacing their fingers together. He remembers Alec's quiet confession, that he'd never done this—that nobody even knew that he was this. He remembers his own reassurance, and Alec's consequent smile—lips turning up, white teeth just flashing, blue eyes shy and brilliant all at once.

He remembers the moment when they'd stopped outside Alec's apartment. He remembers their eyes meeting, locking, blue staring into green and green into blue. He lifts a hand to Alec's cheek, white and brown skin contrasting starkly in the moonlight. Alec leans into his touch (and Magnus gives his heart over right then) and murmurs his name, blinking up at him.

When Magnus leans in to kiss him, it's like every writhing, restless part inside him stills. His skin warms under Alec's touch - tentative at first, more sure every time Magnus doesn't move away, or protest (like he ever would) - and his heart pounds in his chest, so hard he's sure Alec can feel it. And when they break apart, and Magnus whispers Alec's name almost against his lips, it feels like a sacred prayer.

But when the magic of the moment is over, and they see each other again, he sees the hesitation on Alec's face every time they touch. He sees the terror in those blue eyes whenever their eyes meet, and his friends and family are nearby.

And Magnus can't decide whether his heart is breaking, or shattering, or crumbling, when Alec slides his ink-covered arms around Magnus' neck, breathing apologies filled with self-deprecation into his skin.

"It's alright," Magnus says, meaning it. Because he understands the fear of being hated by those you love—and he understands the reality of being hated by those same people even better. And he never wants Alec to be hated. He deserves so much love.

"It's not," Alec replies, holding him tight. Magnus can feel him looking around, nervous, even though they're alone in Magnus' living room.

And then, quieter, he hears, "I love you."

Magnus doesn't know how he survives the colossal feeling of falling, and crashing, and his every atom splitting apart and burning when he hears those words. He doesn't know how he prevents himself combusting: nothing has ever felt so good, so right.

"I love you," he whispers into Alec's hair, soft against his face. He kisses his forehead, his lips resting there for a long moment as his eyes close. "I love you."

3.

_When he's curled up on your lap shaking with mismatched breaths, you'll wonder how someone who looked like he carried mountains on his shoulders could crumble so easily in your arms like the tornado in his mind finally hit him and knocked him off his feet._

The first time Magnus sees Alec cry, he feels like his world is falling apart. Alec is strong - so much stronger than he gives himself credit for - but he knocks on Magnus' door at two in the morning, and he's trembling and his face is drained of any colour, and Magnus knows that something is so, terribly wrong.

He doesn't hesitate to wrap Alec in his arms, barely thinking to shut the door as a dam breaks and sobs wrack through him, tears soaking Magnus' shoulder. Magnus presses his hands against Alec's back, holding him close, and stays silent. He doesn't ask questions - not yet - and he doesn't make false promises. But he's there. He's always there.

He leads Alec into his bedroom, and pulls him gently down onto his bed. Alec curls into his lap, clinging to him as he mumbles barely-coherent apologies that Magnus immediately dismisses. He hates that Alec thinks that Magnus could ever have a priority above him. He doesn't know when Alec started to come before all the things that Magnus had once put first, but Magnus prefers it this way.

It's not until a long time later that Magnus lets himself ask what's wrong. He's never seen Alec break and shatter like that - not even when his father condemned their relationship. Alec draws back, his face streaked with tears, tracks painted onto his cheeks, and tells Magnus that his little brother is dying, and that there's nothing the doctors can do, and that it's only a matter of time before he's gone.

Magnus doesn't know what to say. He knows what family means for Alec, and he knows how fiercely and wholly Alec loves. So he pulls Alec back into his arms, and rocks them slowly as Alec cries again: painful, choking, shattering sobs ricocheting through him for so long that Magnus fears they'll never end.

Magnus barely realises that he's starting singing softly, the Indonesian lullabies falling from his lips while Alec's entire body shakes, and Magnus keeps swaying them back and forth. Faces from long ago flash in his mind: a woman with the same dark hair and green eyes as him, smiling as she sings, before she realised how he was conceived; a tall, glowering man who ruined him; a faceless stranger - a man - who brought him into this world through violence.

He's brushing his fingers through Alec's hair, and letting his lips press to his hair and his temple and his neck every time he pauses between verses, or between songs. And, slowly, Alec seems to run out of tears, so exhausted that he doesn't have the energy left to cry any more.

So Magnus leans back just enough to pull Alec's sweater over his head and take off his jeans, and then he lays Alec down under the duvet, and draws him back into his arms. He tucks Alec into his chest, feeling the last tremors shudder through him before sleep pulls him under.

And when they stand, all dressed in black, in front of a coffin that's far too small and amongst people wrecked with grief, not even Alec's father protests when Alec reaches out and clutches Magnus' hand. Nobody comments when the coffin is lowered into the ground, and Magnus slides his arm around Alec's waist in silent support. Alec's family barely seem to notice when Alec turns around and buries his face in Magnus' shoulder, crying again.

Magnus doesn't even think about refusing when Alec asks to go home with Magnus, rather than sleep on his own. He helps Alec undress, feeling his own heart break at how ruined Alec is.

He doesn't complain when Alec wakes him with a scream. He doesn't hesitate to sit up and pry Alec's fingers away from where they're yanking at his hair and scratching at his skin. He doesn't think twice about holding him for hours again, like he did last him, while he sings softly in Alec's ear and rocks them, until Alec falls asleep in his arms.

And Magnus wonders when he'd fallen so far that seeing Alec in so much pain was more agonising than anything he could remember.

4.

_In the half-light he'll run his fingers over your arms like he is reading words carved into your skin, binding them together in the perfect metaphor, and you'll hear it playback in your head at 4am when your head runs wild with thoughts of him._

Magnus can't remember feeling more content than he does, laid out on the sofa between Alec's bent legs, leaning back against his chest. He barely awake. He can hear the steady thump-thump of Alec's heartbeat, and it's lulling him to sleep.

Alec is tracing his fingers over Magnus' arms, following veins and tendons and invisible lines, like Magnus sometimes follows the swirls of Alec's tattoos. They're both silent, but Magnus feels like Alec is speaking a soundless language into his skin, and reading every prayer Magnus didn't know he'd made.

And later, when Alec is sound asleep next to him, Magnus is wide awake, his mind racing as he props himself up on his elbow and stares down at the sleeping man next to him. Alec is everywhere in his thoughts, and everywhere in his lift, and stamped all over his heart.

Magnus isn't sure when that stopped being terrifying.

5.

_You'll find a safe haven on rooftops and abandoned rooms where he'll set fire to your insides with hushed breaths between kisses planted perfectly on your lips and make you wonder how dangerous it is to play with wild flames while your body is made of paper._

"Alec," Magnus gasps, as lips press down his neck and teeth nip, soft and gentle with a wild edge of barely-restrained wildfire. "Alec."

His name falls from Magnus' lips as a prayer, a divine expression, an exhalation of love and adoration on an impossible scale, over and over and over. And Magnus' body is on fire, and he can't ever let Alec go, because if he does, it will kill him.

He's not sure whether or not that should scare him.

It doesn't. It hasn't for a long time.

Then Alec gasps out Magnus' name, eyes going wide, before his entire body relaxes, his eyelids drooping heavily. He becomes pliant under Magnus' touch, and Magnus thinks that maybe Alec feels this as deeply and desperately as he does.

"Magnus," Alec breathes. " _Magnus_."

Magnus' heart aches.

They push and pull, praying and blaspheming and making their own religion between them, and it _burns_ , all over, completely, consuming them both entirely. Magnus can't breathe, and Alec is arching back and pressing in, and they can't get close enough to each other.

It burns brighter, hotter, more fiercely, as they wrap themselves together, their legs and arms coming around each other, pulling and pulling and _pulling_ , frantic and eager and long, long past coherent thought as they meet, hard.

The heady drag of lips across skin has them clawing at each other, grabbing and panting and cursing, the fire wrapping round them, tighter and tighter and hotter and hotter, the flames licking up their bodies and right through them, down deep.

They each moan the other's name, so intimately close on a physical and emotional level that they're as near to being one as it's possible for two humans to be.

It's closer, deeper, more, more, _more_ , until suddenly it's _everywhere_ , and they're _everywhere_ , and _everything_ , and it's so, so good, it can't be real. And they're clutching at each other as everything explodes, blazing and consuming them entirely.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, they burn out. Their heartbeats slow, and their breathing steadies, and their tight grips loosen to reveal half-moon marks left by fingernails. But neither care.

They curl together, arms around each other, sweaty and filthy and cleansed, exhausted and primal and so very alive. Their kisses are slow and languid, fingers running through damp hair, knuckles tracing gentle patterns on heated skin, whispered words of love spoken low in the darkness of the room.

6.

_You'll stare God right in the eye and tell Him that if loving him was a sin, then you want no place in Heaven with Him because the way his lips fit perfectly on your neck is a type of paradise you'll never forget._

Magnus didn't know it was possible to love like he loves Alec. He didn't know it was possible to catch someone's gaze, and to see his entire world written in their eyes. He didn't know.

But oh, God, he knows it now.

Alec's eyes are soft as they watch each other, silent in the dead of night, laid out side by side, just the back of their hands touching. Slowly, Magnus turns his hand to lace his fingers through Alec's, and he sees the line of Alec's jaw slacken a little.

Alec leans over to kiss him, light and slow and careful, and his free hand cards through Magnus' hair. Magnus can feel the warmth of Alec's bare torso against his, and he slides his palm down the length of Alec's back, feeling over smooth skin and ridges of spine and ribs.

When they pull apart, Magnus is sure the past year must have been a dream. How can mortal men like them feel such things? How can Magnus, so undeserving of such love from Alec, have him here, in his arms, their heartbeats thudding together?

But Alec is here, and he's real, and his lips are impossibly tender as they brush across Magnus's exposed skin.

And Magnus decides that it doesn't matter. The beautiful man with the otherworldly blue eyes that he saw, so long ago, walking through that party, a perfect puzzle that can never be fully solved, is his.

Alec is his.

Magnus is Alec's.

And that's all that matters.


End file.
